


The Tower

by INMH



Series: The Fruits of Mercy [4]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, Ghosts, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, I mean that's kind of par for the course with this game but especially in this one, Murder, References to Past Murder/Execution, Strong Language, Supernatural Elements, Violence, references to past violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Fruits of Mercy series. Lakshmi isn’t quite as fearless as she lets on, and Grayson encounters an old acquaintance.





	The Tower

**Author's Note:**

> A word of warning: I have (tragically) never been to London and therefore never been into the Brass Mount, and I therefore have no idea what the inside of it looks like (or rather, what it would have looked like in an AU of 1887); and unfortunately Google is of no help, so I just kind of had to wing it.

**[-The Twenty-First of May, 1887-]**  
  
“The Tower of London.”  
  
Lakshmi did not respond.  
  
Grayson raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m merely repeating what I heard: They said they would be meeting at the Tower of London. Our best opportunity would be to sneak in, disable any guards we encounter, and try to listen in on whatever we can.”  
  
“I agree.”  
  
But Lakshmi looked oddly… Nervous? Was that what that look on her face was? Grayson had never seen her nervous before. Lakshmi wasn’t a nervous woman, and he wasn’t sure what it was that had her bothered now.  
  
“Is there a problem?”  
  
Lakshmi tapped her fingers on the table. “The Tower of London.”  
  
“Yes,” Grayson replied, feeling frustration creeping in. “Do you have a problem with the Tower of London, Lakshmi?”  
  
“No,” Lakshmi snapped, too quickly and aggressively to be truthful.  
  
“I don’t believe you.”  
  
Lakshmi avoided his eyes. “I don’t like the Tower. It’s… Disturbing.”  
  
Grayson squinted at her, unsure of what she meant; he’d lived in London for the majority of his life and the Tower had been around for most of that time. He was having trouble understanding why anyone would describe the Tower as ‘disturbing’. “Disturbing?” He repeated.  
  
Lakshmi hesitated, and there appeared to be a slight blush to her cheeks. “From what I hear, there are many ghosts in that Tower; apparently a few of them the former wives of one of your kings.”  
  
Grayson groaned lowly and covered his eyes. The Order had made an unspoken decision that they would never speak aloud of certain troublesome monarchs whose reigns they were forced to live through; Henry VIII was one of them. When he’d announced the execution of Katherine Howard in 1541 Perceval had narrowly skirted execution himself for suggesting that ‘that damn lunatic was killing another one, we ought to put _his_ neck on the block’ in front of the entire Order. He would have probably been killed if everyone in the room hadn’t _agreed_ with him to some extent. Even the Chancellor had only uttered a mild recrimination in the form of “For God’s sake Sebastien, don’t let _him_ hear you say that.”  
  
To be perfectly frank, Grayson had lived nearly four-hundred-fifty years and had yet to encounter anything he could definitively, absolutely label as a ghost- and he’d had plenty of opportunity to, if one trusted the amount of people who swore up and down that they’d seen _something_ sitting in their parlor last night, or _something_ on the road (usually on their way home from the pub, Grayson cynically noted).  
  
“Lakshmi,” Grayson intoned flatly. “Please tell me you don’t believe those bloody superstitions.”  
  
Lakshmi glared at him. “I don’t take things like this lightly, Knight,” She snapped. “After everything I’ve seen in this life, I don’t dismiss the possibility of vengeful spirits lightly, and according to your country’s history, there should be _many_ vengeful spirits haunting that Tower.”  
  
“You took on the British Army,” Grayson whispered, shaking his head. “You took on the Order. You took on half-breeds. And you’re afraid of _ghosts?_ ”  
  
“Oh _hush_ ,” Lakshmi snapped. “I doubt you’re completely fearless yourself.”  
  
[---]  
  
There was nothing for it.  
  
If they wanted to know what Hastings and his associates were planning, they would have to be in the Tower the next night at midnight. And so, despite her hesitation, Lakshmi and Grayson found themselves sneaking through the Tower of London that night.  
  
“I don’t like this,” Lakshmi muttered lowly as they slid through the halls, wary of any guards that might need to quietly be avoided or knocked unconscious. “There’s something wrong about this place.”  
  
“I have been alive nearly four times longer than you, Lakshmi, and frequented this Tower more times than I can count,” Grayson whispered back, “And I’ve never once seen a ghost, here or anywhere else.”  
  
“That’s wonderful for you,” Lakshmi spat, now sounding outright snippy. “I’ve seen several, and I don’t care to see anymore tonight.”  
  
Grayson rolled his eyes and reminded himself to interrogate her on those ghosts she’d seen later. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for a moment until he found Sebastien’s watch (which Tesla had been kind enough to return to him with the clothing he’d left Grayson at the safe house) and flipped it open, squinting to see the numbers in the dark: Ten-twenty-five. “We need to hurry,” he hissed. “Unless you’d like to be caught by a guard instead?”  
  
Lakshmi muttered something in Hindi that Grayson didn’t understand (but had a decent guess as to its meaning) and didn’t speak anymore of ghosts.  
  
The meeting was to be held on the Brass Mount, and Grayson’s intention was to hide a communicator somewhere nearby so that he and Lakshmi could listen in on the conversation without getting too close. As Hastings was a Vampire known to ally with Lycans, they had to make a reasonable assumption that at least one person in this meeting would be one or the other; and that meant that if Grayson or Lakshmi tried to eavesdrop up close and personal, they ran the risk of being sniffed out.  
  
Usually the Tower was moderately well-guarded, but tonight it seemed that security was lax; by the time they reached the Brass Mount they’d encountered perhaps five guards. Grayson would guess that this was some doing of Hastings, no doubt to make sure the meeting between his associates went off smoothly.  
  
From what he had gleaned from the first bit of eavesdropping he’d done, the meeting in question was to be held between two separate associates of Hastings looking to potentially ally and do further business with one another. It was the precise identities of the two men and their nature of their business that concerned Lakshmi, as- given their connection to Hastings- was no doubt something that boded ill for the people of London and the world in general.  
  
Grayson rigged up the communicator under a table and used a bit of wire to hold down the button. “Nearly done,” He whispered to Lakshmi, who was standing watch by the door. “Any guards?”  
  
"None."  
  
And maybe it was that he’d gone so long with Isabeau and Lafayette poking at one another that Grayson innocently inquired, “Nothing? No ghosts?”  
  
Lakshmi gave him a withering look, and he chuckled.  
 ** _  
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!_**  
  
They both froze.  
  
For a beat after the sound abated, they were both silent.  
  
Then Lakshmi whispered, “Vampire?”  
  
Grayson nodded, swallowing thickly. “Vampire.” He frantically secured the communicator under the table and pulled his knife from its scabbard, keeping it down by his side. “You think they’ve scented us?”  
  
“Doubt it,” Lakshmi replied darkly, loading bullets into her pistol. “That sounded more like a greeting than an alarm.” She looked quickly towards both doors. “Too close, though. Far too close.” She nodded to the door on their left. “Let’s head out that way and make for the main building.”  
  
Stepping out into the cool, dark Knight made Grayson’s stomach turn. Part of what made Vampires so much more terrifying than Lycans was the simple fact that they were quieter and faster and so much harder to detect. One could jump down and rip their throats open in a moment’s notice; really, the only reason why Hastings hadn’t managed to kill Lakshmi that night in the Company House was because Alastair hadn’t restrained Grayson quickly enough to prevent him from striking Hastings from the side. If Alastair or Hastings had been a moment faster, Lakshmi would be dead and the Rebellion likely would not have been so welcoming of Grayson when he’d returned to the city.  
  
They moved quickly and kept low until they were back in the White Tower- a safe distance from which they planned to watch the conspirators meet at the Brass Mount as they listened in. Even once they’d managed to reach the building and bar the door behind them, the distance didn’t seem quite safe enough anymore.  
  
“You think they saw us?” Lakshmi whispered, breathless.  
  
“If they did, we’d likely be dead by now.” Grayson responded, moving carefully to a window and peering out; he then did a double-take when he realized what he was looking at.  
  
Grayson had been to the Tower many a time in his long, long life, and he was still quite certain that there were no ghosts there- but the Tower green sent a shudder running down his back whenever he saw it. Grayson, Sebastien, the Lord Chancellor, and the then-Guinevere had been present for the execution of Katherine Howard, whose desperate pleas for clemency had not been enough to sway Henry’s heart. All Grayson could think of when he looked out at the Tower Green was the crowd, the chill of the day, and the pretty little nineteen year-old Queen who lost her head because she’d done what billions of other silly young men and women had done throughout history- the only reason she’d taken an axe to the neck was because she happened to be married to a King.  
  
“Grayson?” Lakshmi was looking at him pointedly, and Grayson realized that he’d been staring out at the Tower Green longer than was strictly necessary. “Is something out there?”  
  
“No,” He responded finally, “No, I think we’re-”  
  
“OI!” A guard was standing at the other end of the hall. “What are you doing in here?!”  
  
“ _Whore’s son_ -” Grayson grabbed for his knife, but Lakshmi beat him with her pistol. The shot was only silenced somewhat as the bullet pierced the guard’s skull, and Grayson’s heart was pounding with panic.  
  
If the Vampires were nearby, they’d undoubtedly heard that.  
  
Grayson bolted to the felled guard and looked around for someplace to hide the body, but then realized that any Vampire or Lycan who didn’t currently have a head-cold would be able to smell the blood a mile away. In protecting themselves, they might have   
just lured their prey to them.  
  
“ _Run!_ ”  
  
The took off haphazardly into the poorly-lit hallways, desperate to put some measure of distance between themselves and the body of the guard. If they were lucky, maybe the other guards or the Vampires (mainly the vampires) would think it was a robbery gone wrong and not hunt too aggressively for the perpetrator.  
  
Grayson doubted it, but he could hope. Desperation made up most of his state of mind nowadays.  
  
Abruptly, somewhere in the darkness, Grayson came to a halt, freezing in place. He did not hear anyone nearby…  
  
…And then realized that Lakshmi was gone.  
  
He turned around, squinting at scanning the darkness for her. He didn’t hear anyone else- no guards, no Lakshmi, no nothing. “Lakshmi!” Grayson hissed, keeping a death-grip on his knife. She didn’t respond, and hissing frantically into the darkness didn’t seem like an especially tempting solution to the problem, so Grayson sighed and shook his head, letting all sorts of nasty words out under his breath.  
  
They must have been separated during the mad dash, though how she could have failed to follow him was beyond Grayson.  
 _  
Unless_ , a dark thought crept into his mind, _she was snatched up the way Finlay was by Hastings._  
  
They hadn’t heard a peep from Finlay when Hastings had grabbed him and started feeding on him. The only noises they’d heard were the surprisingly soft death-rattle sounds the young rebel had made as Hastings had finished draining him, and they’d only heard those sounds once they were too up-close and personal for comfort.  
  
The thought of Lakshmi being bled dry by Vampires made Grayson’s stomach turn and his skin grow clammy with sweat and fear. He tried to calm down by reminding himself that Lakshmi wasn’t as familiar with the Tower as he was, and it had been _remarkably_ dark in some of the hallways- they’d jostled each other plenty of times, and maybe Lakshmi thought it was Grayson who’d fallen behind.  
 _  
She’s fine_ , Grayson reminded himself, breathing deeply. _She’s a fine fighter, and she has the Blackwater. She’s fine._  
  
On a more practical note, Lakshmi was the one with the other communicator they were using to spy on the meeting. Hopefully if she’d managed to tuck herself away somewhere she was ready to listen in. Speaking of which, it would be best to check the time and see how long they had until-  
  
Grayson’s searching hand went still, and his heart stopped:  
  
Sebastien’s watch was _gone_.  
  
He quickly patted down his pockets and every other place on his body where he might have thoughtlessly stowed the watch as they’d ran, but there was nothing to be found beyond his usual trappings.  
 _  
Bloody fucking **shit!**_  
  
Maybe it was irrational to be distressed over a missing watch when he’d just managed to calm his fears regarding a missing person, but Lakshmi was likely alive and could handle herself; Sebastien’s watch was one of the few things Grayson had left of his old mentor, and he was loath to be parted with it for any reason, but especially because he’d stupidly lost it in the dark.  
  
He would have to backtrack. And if he was lucky, he’d find the watch and Lakshmi at the same time.  
  
Grayson prowled through the halls cautiously despite the lack of obvious presence from anyone else, knife at the ready and periodically getting to his knees and groping around for any watch-shaped objects that might be lying beneath a table or in a corner. Given that it was as dark as it had been earlier, with only a dim light from the moon outside to see by, the searching was slow and arduous and the silence was eerie enough to set his teeth on edge.  
  
He found himself crouching beneath another ornate table in a room he (they?) had run through, and the length and involvedness in the search was beginning to make Grayson feel guilty; he should just forget the bloody watch and get going to find Lakshmi. If Sebastien were there he would have chastised him, smacked him across the back of the head for being so ridiculously sentimental.  
  
“I should hope I’ve left you with something more important than a _watch_ ,” Sebastien would say, looking at Grayson the way he looked at everyone who was doing something hopelessly stupid.  
 _  
You have, my friend_ , Grayson thought as he felt around under the table, _but I’m only human, and a physical reminder helps._  
  
“Here, Sir Knight.”  
  
Every part of Grayson’s body turned to ice.  
  
His alarm at the voice behind him came in four phases:  
  
First, fear and surprise at the fact that someone was behind him without him realizing it.  
  
Second, a sudden realization that the voice actually sounded familiar.  
  
Third, a sense of overwhelming relief, because this was not someone who needed to be feared.  
  
And fourth, a deep, instinctive sort of terror upon realizing exactly why it was that he recognized the voice.  
  
Because this was not a voice he had heard in a very, very long time- but he had heard it before. It had been spoken with an innocence and sweetness common in young girls who had not yet emotionally matured to adult womanhood and all of its woes. And it had come from a beautiful young girl that, at least in physical appearance, had not appeared much younger than Grayson was at the time.  
  
Slowly, he turned and looked.  
  
She was as young (only nineteen) and as beautiful as the day she died, Katherine Howard. Her large eyes blinked innocently at him, and her blonde hair fell down in curls around her shoulders and back. In her outstretched hand was Perceval’s watch. The irony of this, that she should be holding something belonging to the man who’d defended her and suggested the King be beheaded instead of her, did not escape Grayson.  
  
“This is yours, isn’t it?”  
  
Grayson stared at her for a moment more, trying to force his mind to comprehend what he was seeing- and then he nodded. “Yes,” He said, hoarsely. “Yes, it is, Katherine. Thank you.”  
  
Katherine smiled beatifically as he took the watch from her hand. There was something eerie about her appearance, some sort of unidentifiable aspect of her being or bearing that set her apart from the living, but Grayson did not think she meant him any harm. “It has been too long,” She said.  
  
“Yes it has,” Grayson responded, running his thumb over the edge of the watch. “I… I was quite sad to see you go, Katherine. You were a fine woman.”  
  
She smiled again, this time sadly. “It makes no difference. Everyone’s time comes eventually. Even yours will, one day.”  
  
Grayson doubted she meant it as a threat, but the words resonated through his being and shook him to the core.  
  
He blinked, and she was gone.  
  
After a moment to confirm that she really was gone, Grayson let out a long, breathless gasp; he felt winded, like he’d just run a mile at a full sprint without stopping. Though he might try to convince himself of it later, he wasn’t mad- that was Katherine Howard he’d just seen, as sweet-faced as she’d been when she was alive. Grayson had seen her, touched her hand briefly as he’d taken the watch from her. He had not hallucinated, and he was not dreaming.  
  
“God,” He whispered. “I might be insane.”  
  
Grayson half-wondered if Katherine might reappear to challenge that notion, but she did not.  
   
[---]  
  
“Knight!”  
  
Grayson went through the same set of phases now as he did before when Katherine had appeared to him, sans the deep, abiding terror- Lakshmi was terrifying, no doubt, but the presence of a very-much-alive Rebel Queen did not alarm him the way a ghost of a long-dead Queen did.  
  
“Where were you?” Lakshmi hissed. “I thought you’d been grabbed!”  
  
“And I you,” Grayson responded.  
  
Lakshmi frowned, and pulled him near to the window so she could see him better. Her eyes widened. “Are you alright? You look horribly pale.”  
  
Evidently Katherine had shaken him worse than he’d realized.  
  
“I’m fine. It’s nothing. Did you encounter any guards?”  
  
“No,” Lakshmi smirked. “But I did hear enough of the Vampires’ little meeting to know which ship they’re going to be stowing their next set of cargo on.”  
  
Grayson sighed. “Thank God for that.”  
  
“It’s not nearly as much this time, I think because we killed so many Vampires on their way to the Americas with the Agamemnon and the Blackwall warehouses. They’re trying to pace it out- apparently some of the Vampires are concerned about Hastings’s ability to get them to the Americas safely, given how the last two attempts went.”  
  
Grayson felt oddly bothered by that fact: That the Vampires who were meant to be shipped were scared of being targeted and burned alive humanized them somewhat, and he was uncomfortably reminded of Alastair’s remark that the half-breeds weren’t quite as different from humans as either group would like to think. Were they going about this the right way?  
 _  
In fairness,_ Grayson considered, _Vampires have to feed from other living things to survive, and their primary choice of cuisine is humans, so for the time being I’m inclined to assume the worst._  
  
“Any mention of Lucan?”  
  
Lakshmi shook her head. “None- Not a word about the Lycans in general, actually, which leads me to wonder if they’re still associated or if they’re simply not involved in this venture.” She nodded to the door. “We should go. I’ll tell you the rest on our way back to Whitechapel.”  
  
“Good idea.” The Tower was considerably more intimidating than before, and Grayson had no greater desire than to flee her walls as soon as possible.  
  
Lakshmi headed to the door, had her hand on the handle, but then turned back and eyed Grayson suspiciously. “Are you certain you’re alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” There was a sardonic little smile on her lips as she said it, a play on the banter they’d had earlier on the topic of ghosts, but Grayson wasn’t laughing anymore. Part of him wanted to apologize to her, that she was completely right and ghosts were real, and the other part of him wanted to go rent himself a room at Bedlam.  
  
“Perfectly fine,” Grayson said again. “Let’s go.”  
  
But as he went to walk out the door, he was suddenly overtaken with the strangest feeling that someone was watching them. Grayson whipped around, looking down at the long hallway behind him, and saw no one.  
  
But that didn’t mean that no one was there.  
  
Grayson shut the door behind him quickly and vowed not to return to the Tower unless he absolutely had to.  
  
Because when the choice was between ghosts and madness, the question was perhaps better left unanswered.

-End 


End file.
